Introduction: Venous blood collection is a procedure in which a needle is temporarily inserted into a vein to collect a sample. Nurses who perform phlebotomy are responsible for ensuring the quality of blood samples and patient safety. A lack of knowledge poses a risk of preanalytical errors, which can affect laboratory results and clinical diagnoses, with consequences ranging from financial losses to threats to patient health and even death. Healthcare professionals must therefore follow guidelines that describe recommendations for performing venous blood collection. Since the correct performance of this procedure is closely related to the knowledge of nurses, assessing their knowledge of phlebotomy is the first step towards reducing errors and improving the safety of patients and healthcare professionals. Purpose: The purpose of this diploma work is to present the knowledge of nurses in venous blood collection through a review of the literature. Methods: A review of domestic and foreign professional and scientific articles was conducted. The articles included are written in Slovenian or English and were published between 2014 and 2024. The articles were searched via the online portal of the Digital Library of the University of Ljubljana (DiKUL) and the bibliographic collections PubMed, ScienceDirect, CINAHL Ultimate, and Mendeley in the period from November 2024 to May 2025 inclusive. Sixteen articles were included in the final analysis. Results: In most studies, nurses' knowledge was assessed as insufficient in several important steps of venous blood collection, such as patient identification, labeling and sequencing of tubes, hemolysis prevention and use of tourniquets. Sometimes nurses have theoretical knowledge, but in practice they do not perform the blood collection procedure correctly. Most nurses disagree with the transfer of venous sampling competencies to specialized phlebotomists. Professional training contributes significantly to the more correct performance of the procedure. Discussion and conclusion: Nurses' knowledge of venous blood collection is lacking in several steps that can significantly affect laboratory results and patient safety. The frequency of errors after reviewing the literature indicates the importance of continuous professional training and practice for nurses on phlebotomy.
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